INCLUSIVE Bookshop Fundraising Auction

My publishing friends Aimée Felone and David Stevens from new independent children’s publisher Knights Ofare fundraising for an inclusive bookshop.

They have ambitious plans to run a permanent shop in Brixton and other pop-ups around the country. They need to raise £30,000 to make this happen and before the end of January! I’m sure, like me, you understand that their bookshop and pop-ups aren’t just important, but essential. It always takes individuals, like Aimée and David to create the change they want to see in the world.

With that in mind, I offered to give them a hand with their fundraising. I have pulled in favours from my publishing and author friends for a bookish auction. Once again, I’m in awe of how generous people are across this industry. There are so many fabulous books that you can bid on (see below) with many of them signed.

If you’d like to contribute to the auction, or have a question then feel free to email me here.

If you prefer to donate directly, you can do so here.

More from Aimée Felone and David Stevens -

‘The CLPE Reflecting Realities survey reported that only one per cent of UK children’s books featured a BAME (black, Asian and minority ethnic) protagonist in 2017. These numbers led us to open a five day pop-up bookshop in October filled ONLY with representative books. We were overwhelmed by the response: families knocking on the window to get in before we had unpacked and selling out of books.

We are going to bring the #ReadTheOnePercent pop-up bookshop to other cities around the UK and Ireland. With a central store in London’s Brixton, we want to hire a permanent bookseller to focus on making the #ReadTheOnePercent stores happen in as many cities as possible. The pop-ups, and the Brixton shop, will be focal points for all representative books, from all publishers, and shared with those that truly need it--a flexible, mobile store that we can move quickly and make destination events for readers to see themselves in books across the country.’